Maine

Do let me know if there’s anything or anyone interesting I should check out in those places, I think I’ll be mostly doing media stuff and finishing the new book on my laptop in darkened rooms, but distractions are always welcome. Having done about a zillion free public talks in the UK over the past 5 years I’m sad there are no more public events, hopefully I’ll get the time to make it back to the US and Canada another time.

I’ll be very interested to see how all this goes in America. About half the web traffic to this blog is from the US, and the book really surprised me in the UK (250,000 copies so far and Christmas number one in the non-fiction charts, call me Cliff Richard). I doubt it will be a huge splash in America – how English am I? – but if I’m honest, I write and tweet and talk mainly as a motivator to find and consume more interesting stuff for myself, so what I’m really hoping for, as I get to know these countries better, is more US and Canadian tips, stories, and food for thought.

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If you like what I do, and you want me to do more, you can: buy my books Bad Science and Bad Pharma, give them to your friends, put them on your reading list, employ me to do a talk, or tweet this article to your friends. Thanks!
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13 Responses

Trodamus said,

Well. I was going to purchase this from amazon.co.uk, but now I can just have my family get it for me for christmas without any excess instructions.

You’re quite charismatic, Ben. Any word on whether you might do a talk show or two while you’re here? The Daily Show or Letterman seem like shoe-ins, especially since John Stewart tends to have an interest in this sort of ontological inertia.

However, being a Chicago native that hasn’t been to New York or much of anywhere in Canada, I can’t give much advice on the cities you’ll be visiting, save for which city to plan a last-minute trip to once you’re sick of them (uh…Chicago, for example).

sandy t said,

Sadly, I’m on the wrong side of Canada to see you. Do please come out West next time!
I bought the English edition of the book as soon as it came out. Is there any substantive difference, or is it just a new cover?

Thank you to you and to the other presenters for an awesome presentation last night here in Montréal. I was very touched and engaged, and I believe many other people in the audience were too. Bon courage !

I forgot to mention that your readers can check out the Montreal presentation here bcooltv.mcgill.ca/Viewer1/?RecordingID=55117 Dr. Goldacre’s presentation starts at the 1 hour 27 minute mark, but if you have time, I recommend sitting through the whole thing.

Jess said,

Ben,
I live in a modest town in Australia so little chance of ever seeing you, unfortunately. But you are welcome if you’d like to drop by – it’s sunny here.
I bought your book recently and loved it. However there were two things about it which actually did hurt my fee-fees: your constant jabs at humanities graduates (I am one – a linguist – and my discipline is definitely evidence-based, with little patience for bullshit. I’m certainly less gullible than my friends with engineering, teaching, and animal science degrees, so the jibes irk me), and your apparent assumption that your readers are male (e.g. telling me to look at my sperm under a microscope… um ok thanks but I don’t make any actually!). There were a few other instances where it seemed as if you assumed I was male, or used gender stereotypes, but I don’t want to trawl through right now. It’s just, like, I’m reading this kickass book that is filling me up with really good examples and figures to give to people so that I can be more confident in conversations about alternative medicine, vaccination etc, and then BAM you make a joke at my expense because my discipline is a humanities, or I realize that you think I’m a dude and I am reminded that I’m not one of the clever science men. I just really want to be included, not excluded, because this is one of the communities with which I indentify. I want other women to feel belonging rather than otherness in the science/popscience and debunking worlds. It would only take a very few changes to your wording to be completely inclusive of women and for me to be able to read your book through without feeling like, on some level, that it was not written for me.
Uh sorry for the rant, you just seem to be the kind of person who would be able to take on feedback like this, and I didn’t know where else to write to you.
I totally loved your book otherwise and will be buying it for friends this Christmas.
Jess.